In this special Jubilee Year, you are warmly invited to join the three ‘London’ Dioceses of Brentwood, Southwark and Westminster for the annual Mass for Migrants on Bank Holiday Monday, 5th May 2025 at Westminster Cathedral, starting at 2.00pm with a procession of banners.
This year the Mass is hosted by the Diocese of Westminster at Westminster Cathedral.
The Mass for the Feast of St Joseph the Worker is prepared by the Justice & Peace Commissions, Caritas and Ethnic Chaplaincies of the three Dioceses and celebrates the contributions made to faith, life and work in the UK by all those who come from other countries to make a home here.
Music will be provided by musicians from the Lourdes Mass and a variety of Ethnic Chaplaincy choirs. We will also be joined by community organisers from London Citizens
Our celebrant and preacher this year is Cardinal Michael Fitzgerald MAfr OBE. Cardinal Fitzgerald is a British Cardinal who headed the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue from 2002 to 2006. He has held the rank of archbishop since 2002 and was apostolic nuncio to Egypt and delegate to the Arab League, prior to his retirement in 2012. Pope Francis raised him to the rank of cardinal on 5 October 2019. He is one of the leading experts on Islam, Christian–Muslim relations and interreligious dialogue in the international Catholic Church. He is fluent in Arabic.
Parishes and Catholic organisations are welcome to bring banners for the procession. Everyone is invited to wear national dress. Those taking part in the procession are invited to arrive from 1.30pm where light refreshments will be provided and a locked space in which to leave possessions during the Mass.
Do come along and bring the family, whether you are from a migrant background or not! It is always a colourful and a lively occasion.
Fr Dominic Robinson SJ, Chair of the Westminster Justice and Peace Commission, writes:
“We truly hope that you can join us and we can fill the Cathedral on this day when we give thanks to God for the universal gift of work and for the huge contribution of migrants to our city. This annual event is such an important one in our Churches’ calendar as it represents the presence and involvement of so many Catholics from diverse ethnic communities, a mark of our true catholicity.
And at a time when we see a reluctance or hostility to truly welcome the stranger in our midst, this gathering takes on a prophetic role too as we are called to celebrate with great enthusiasm our diverse musical gifts, national dress, our cultural diversity in all its richness, and so witness to the dignity of every human person and the dignity of fulfilling work as a gift from God for all”.
Cardinal Fitzgerald with Colette Joyce from Westminster J&P. Image ICN/JS
Cardinal Michael Fitzgerald M.Afr. gave the following talk on the Day of Martyrdom of Archbishop Oscar Romero, Saturday, 22 March, 2025, at St Martin in the Fields, Trafalgar Square.
All my hope on God is founded. On this day when we are celebrating the anniversary of the martyrdom of Archbishop Romero, which falls actually on Monday 24 March, we are concentrating on HOPE, because we badly need Hope in our world today and Archbishop Romero is a figure of hope.
We have heard a reading from St Paul to the Romans about Abraham who believed though it would seem that there was no room left for hope or belief. He was old, and his wife was old too, and yet he believed that she would bear him a child, since God had promised this.
We have heard recited a poem by a Palestinian about the people of Gaza:
My God is courage, patience, justice, the sumoud of a people.
We adore the same one God, though we understand this God differently.
Muslims say that God is al-samad, which could be translated “rock-like”; God is an all-encompassing refuge for us.
In the midst of this world, with all its difficulties, we are encouraged to take refuge in God.
As Christians, we say that this God has become one with us in Jesus Christ
So, we can truly say that our God is a stubborn refugee girl, her heart still yearning for the place she calls her own.
We can say that our God is a Gaza refugee wishing to share freedom with all of us.
We are called to believe like Abraham, our father; we are called to believe in life as Archbishop Romero did, hoping against hope that conditions will revive, conditions in Gaza, in Israel and Palestine, in Tigray in the North of Ethiopia, in Sudan and Eastern Congo, in Myanmar and Yemen conditions in El Salvador, conditions all around the world where there is conflict. We are encouraged to continue praying for the people in these areas of conflict, following the example of Pope Francis who, every Sunday, at the mid-day prayer, mentions these places and prays for their inhabitants.
We are called not only to pray, but to work for a renewal of life, as the Qur’an reminds us:
Have you considered the one who denies the Judgement? that is the one
who pushes aside the orphan and does not urge others to feed the needy
So woe to those who pray but are heedless of their prayer; those who are all show and forbid common kindnesses.
( Qur’an 107)
Many of us are familiar with the words of the Gospel:
Come… take for your heritage the kingdom prepared for you…: For I was hungry and you gave me food; I was thirsty and you gave me drink; I was a stranger and you made me welcome; naked and you clothed me; sick and you visited me, in prison, and you came to see me; I tell you solemnly, in so far as you did this to one of the least of these brothers [or sisters] of mine, you did it to me.
( Gospel according to Matthew, 25: 34-42)
This year, Ramadan and Lent fall together in the same period. We can remember that their contents are similar: fasting, prayer and alms-giving, but the reasons for engaging in these practices are different.
To fast every day during the month of Ramadan, to abstain during the hours of day-light from every intake of food or drink or of any substance is very demanding. The Christian is not asked to observe this. The Christian would be expected to forego some food or drink during the 40 days of Lent; avoiding alcohol, which is allowed at other times; avoiding chocolate or sweets; having a simple meal such as spaghetti and cheese and being able to share the amount saved with people who are in need.
There are other ways of fasting that can be chosen: avoiding watching television, curbing one’s use of social media.
All this is voluntary, by way of free choice. Whereas I understand that Ramadan is observed as an act of obedience to God: “You who believe, fasting is prescribed for you… so that you may be mindful of God (Q 2: 183).”
Ramadan is practised more collectively; families gather together to break the fast.
Lent is a more individual practice.
Lent is really a way of preparing for the celebration of the greatest feast of the Christian year, Easter, the commemoration of the Passion of Jesus, of his death on the Cross, his burial, and his rising to New Life.
Nevertheless, there are common prayers in both religious traditions. Special prayers are recited in the mosque, the tarâwîh, after the last prayer of the day.
Christians have a custom of gathering in church on Friday afternoons or evenings for what we call the Way of the Cross, recalling the different ways Jesus suffered for us.
At this time when Ramadan and Lent unite us, I should like to let the voice of Archbishop Romero resound again:
As long as there are mothers who are crying about the disappearance of their sons and daughters, as long as there are tortures in the headquarters of our security forces, as long as there is horrible disorder… there cannot be peace. We need to be rational and listen to the voice of God, to organize a more just society once more according to God’s heart.
(Through the Year with Oscar Romero, Daily Meditations CAFOD, D.L.T. Christian Aid 2006 p.14).
To return to our theme of Hope, we who believe in Hope, whether we are Christians or Muslims, or whatever religion we belong to, we pray earnestly to God for this gift of Hope, true hope which will generate justice-seeking solidarity, hope which may presage true peace.
In this way we shall be true to ourselves, true to our religions and true to Oscar Romero who has given us such a good example.
Diocese of Westminster Justice and Peace Commission 